Regeneration (episode)
This article is on the ''Star Trek: Enterprise episode. You may also be looking for the state of regeneration.'' A scientific team in the Arctic discovers two Borg drones. When the drones assimilate the scientists and move into space, Enterprise is called upon to find the cybernetic beings and stop them. Summary The show starts off by showing a ship heading towards the Arctic and soon a few scientists begin scouting the area around the debris. Initially they find a drone locked in solid ice, while another scientist finds a drone just covered in ice. They bring it back to the recently set up module and start experimenting with the drone and their equipment. The drone's nanoprobes make repairs and in no time, the drones are reactivated and attack a lone scientist having his coffee break. A battle ensues, resulting in the scientist being assimilated. Two nearby scientists hear the scream and gunshot and rush back to see what was wrong only to be assimilated as well. The scene jumps to Admiral Forrest's office where he is informed that contact with the Arctic team has been lost and they rush to the site, only to find it abandoned. Meanwhile, on Enterprise, Captain Archer briefs the crew about the situation, and soon after, a distress signal is received from a Tarkalean freighter. Enterprise races to the scene to find the scientists' transport upgraded into a small warship cutting a piece out of the freighter. Enterprise opens fire with her phase cannons and destroys the Borg ship's weapons array, which prompts the Borg to jump to warp. Archer decides to stay and try to save the Tarkelean crew instead of pursuing the Borg ship. With the assimilated crew being brought aboard, Phlox tries to cure them using multiple methods but is unsuccessful. Finally the Tarkelean crew submits to the Borg will and attacks Phlox with assimilation tubules and knocks a lone security personnel unconscious while escaping to a maintenance hatch. Later, Phlox is awakened by Archer and discovers that he is being assimilated by nanoprobes and races against time to find a cure while Reed; additional personnel are ordered to pursue the Borg drones. When they finally catch up with the drones, a section of the ship's systems have been modified with Borg components using nanoprobes. Reed gives out a verbal warning to which the drones do not respond. The team fires a few futile shots and while in retreat, they are ambushed by the second drone. Reed knocks the drone unconscious and they escape and close the hatch. Archer decides to vent the area and ejects the drones to space, thus killing them. T'Pol advises him that he did the correct thing. In the meantime, Trip and Reed try to figure out what has been done. Reed decides to go to the armory and tries to improve the phase pistol damage with succesful results, but the pistol needs a few seconds to recharge between shots. This time, when Enterprise catches up with the Borg ship, it is heavily modified and the Borg attempt to interfere with the Enterprise by tapping into Enterprise systems using the recent modifications made by the two Tarkelean drones. The Borg mount a successful attack, and the Enterprise is heavily damaged. The Borg ship continues to attack the Enterprise, and Archer and Reed decide to beam aboard the Borg ship to cripple it. On their way, they encounter several Borg drones and use the opportunity to take scans of regenerating drones, and also test their newly-upgraded weapons on a drone to test their efficiency. On closer inspection, they realizes that the drone was the assimilated scientist and determine they are no longer human based on bio readings. They navigate their way to the Borg ship's EPS systems and en route they come under attack from a Borg drone. Reed and Archer disable the drone by pulling damaging its cybernetic implants. Meanwhile, Borg drones beam aboard Enterprise and are engaged by security personnel, who have managed to neutralize several of the attackers. When Archer and Reed reach their target, they place timed bombs, killing several drones in the process. On Enterprise, Phlox starts hearing the voice of the Collective and manages to ignore it while instructing the security personnel to activate the radiation devices that he believes will stop his assimilation. He enters the chamber and, after the devices activate, Phlox seems to find the treatment unpleasant. In the battle with the Borg ship, Enterprise's hull plating is destroyed by the Borg ship and a piece of the hull is blown off. The Borg ship then begins to remove a section of Enterprise's hull. Finally, Trip pulls out a device from the Borg systems on Enterprise and everything is restored while the drones beam back to the Borg ship. With the bombs placed, Reed and Archer beam back to Enterprise. The drones remove the bombs to study them. Safely beamed aboard, Reed remotely detonates the bombs, destroying the Borg ship's EPS systems, effectively crippling it. On Enterprise, the crew seems pleased with the result only to discover the Borg ship has been restored and is powering weapons. Enterprise launches a volley of spatial torpedoes followed with phase cannon fire and destroys the Borg ship completely. With the battle over, Enterprise starts repairs and travels back at low warp. Phlox briefs Archer and T'Pol about his experience with the hive mind and informs Archer that the drones have transmitted a subspace message. He hands Archer a pad that contains the message. In Archer's room, T'Pol enters and Archer tells her that the computer has finally decoded the message and informs her that the message is being sent to somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. T'Pol replies that there shouldn't be any worries as any subspace message would need 200 years to get to the Delta Quadrant. Archer replies saying that it seems that they have just postponed an attack to the 24th century. Background Information * The episode is an indirect sequel to the events of Star Trek: First Contact. * Among the Borg debris is a filming model of the ''Enterprise-E'''s front saucer section, originally created for the crash scene in Star Trek: Nemesis. * On both occasions, when the Borg ship is attacking the Tarkalean freighter and Enterprise, it is in the process of cutting a round chunk out of them. This is an allusion to TNG: "Q Who?", when the Borg take a cylindrical chunk of the ''Enterprise''-D. The writers initially wanted to show a scene where the Borg take a chunk out of the Tarkalean freighter, but it would have cost too much. * The scene where Reed tests phase pistol efficiency was added at the last minute, as David Livingston's quick form of directing left several minutes to be filled in the end. Also, Reed's line about shooting holographic bullets is an allusion to the holodeck scene in Star Trek: First Contact. * Bonita Friedericy (Rooney) is the wife of John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox). * This episode includes the only appearances of the Borg in Enterprise. Similarly, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine pilot episode, "Emissary", was the only appearance of the Borg in that series, although the Defiant was among the defence fleet against the Borg during the Battle of Sector 001. * Originally, in the script, the research outpost was to have been scooped up off the planet as in TNG: "The Best of Both Worlds" but for budget reasons, this was not the case. Instead, the debris was simply removed from the scenes. * Also in the script was the idea that the Borg ship was to have "grown" by assimilating more and more ships, like a snowball rolling down a hill, as the episode progressed, and this is supposedly how every Borg ship was created, with the "snowball" effect. However, for time reasons and episode logic (if the Borg ship kept stopping to assimilate other vessels, Enterprise would have caught the ship much sooner), the idea was dropped. * There was controversy about the fact that, in this episode, the Borg's standard greeting did not include the words "We are the Borg". The writers' justification for this was that the Borg in TNG: "Q Who?" did not include the above line either when they encountered the Enterprise. The real reason, of course, was that humanity wasn't supposed to know the Borg's name at this point in the already established Star Trek timeline. This was also the case in Star Trek: First Contact. *"Regeneration" was included in the 2006 DVD box set Star Trek: Fan Collective - Borg. * There is argument as to the technological continuity of this episode. At the Battle of Wolf 359 and the Battle of Sector 001, many ships technologically superior to the NX-01 Enterprise, such as the Akira Class and Excelsior Class are destroyed. Then again, the vessel operated by the Borg which attacked Enterprise was only a freighter much less powerful or technologically capable than Enterprise, even with the Borg upgrades, so this weakness is easily excusable; after all, even the Borg are only as good as the equipment available to them. * There is also argument by some viewers that the episode introduces a predestination paradox into the Borg storyarc: if the Borg subspace message dispatched to the Delta Quadrant at the end of the episode is the method by which the Borg originally came to learn of humanity's existence (or at the least the existence of a species deemed suitable for assimilation) and thus the reason for sending the cube that was intercepted, due to Q, by Enterprise-D in system J-25, then the only way by which that "original" ship eventually sent the message was by being a "leftover" of the Collective's Battle of Sector 001-attempt from the future to assimilate humanity beforehand. * It is interesting to note that Phlox wasn't immediately assimilated by the Borg after he was injected with the nanoprobes. In "Star Trek: First Contact" it was shown that the initial assimilation was quite instant. However, it may be possible that his Denobulan physiology required more time to assimilate, as it may have been unfamiliar. Links and References Guest Stars *Vaughn Armstrong as Maxwell Forrest *Jim Fitzpatrick as Williams *Chris Wynne as Moninger *Bonita Friedericy as Rooney *John Short as Drake *Paul Scott as Foster *Adam Harrington as Researcher *Mark Chadwick as Male Tarkalean *Nicole Randal as Female Tarkalean Co-Stars *Louis Ortiz as Borg drone (stunts, uncredited) References A-6 Excavation Team; Arctic One; ''Arctic One'' type; Borg; Borg Sphere; Bynars; Cochrane, Zefram; Zefram Cochrane's commencement address; commencement address; Pulsar triangulation; Tarkaleans; Tarkalean freighter. Category: ENT episodes de:Regeneration es:Regeneration nl:Regeneration (aflevering)